After more than 10 years, Dolby is ready to bring its game-changing Dolby Vision tech into the future with (drum roll) Dolby Vision 2. As a part of IFA 2025, Dolby took the wraps off its sequel to Vision, which brings an array of new capabilities to the company’s proprietary HDR format.
Powering Dolby Vision 2 is an all-new engine that enables tools like “Content Intelligence.” Content Intelligence, as you may have guessed, uses AI to better adapt your TV’s picture to content that you’re watching, fine-tuning aspects based on not only what you’re watching but also where you’re watching it. Within content intelligence, there are several more specific tools, including precision blacks that adjust dark scenes on the fly, which, if it works, is great for anyone who loves OLED panels but has gripes with their performance on darker content.
There’s also—and this one is pretty cool—a light-sensing technology that, according to Dolby, monitors ambient lighting in your room and can automatically optimize your TV based on the lighting in your specific environment. As someone with an unusually dark apartment, I’m all for that, though I’m curious whether tech like this would drastically turn the brightness on my TV way down. I wouldn’t be mad about that, but maybe other people will? Lastly, there are tweaks to Dolby Vision’s handling of fast-paced content like gaming and live sports that are meant to better adjust motion control and white point, which controls the color temperature of whites on your screen.
Dolby is splitting Vision 2 into two tiers—Dolby Vision 2 and Dolby Vision 2 Max—and it says the latter will be available on the “highest performance TVs” and come with “additional premium features.” Gizmodo reached out to Dolby to clarify exactly what the difference is between those two tiers. Here’s what it said:
“Dolby Vision 2 Max includes capabilities designed to unlock the full capabilities and best picture quality on the highest-performing TVs. This includes capabilities such as bi-directional tone mapping, Authentic Motion, and more advanced tools tailored for enthusiasts.”
That tells us a little more, I guess, but from the sounds of it, Dolby Vision 2 Max will be designed to take advantage of the higher fidelity of expensive TVs, while Dolby Vision 2 is geared more toward “mainstream” TVs, in the company’s words. To start, Dolby says it will focus on the “mainstream” side of things, since it will begin rolling out Vision 2 on Hisense panels, though there’s no word on timing and availability quite yet. It says those Hisense TVs will be powered by the MediaTek Pentonic 800 chipset, though.
It’s been 10 years since the release of Dolby Vision back in the day, which allowed TVs to adjust and optimize content on your screen from scene to scene or even frame to frame and bridge the gap between cinema and at-home viewing. It’s been a long time in the works, but it’s no surprise to me that Dolby Vision 2 would be released now, given advancements in AI and their ability to understand context. More than that, though, Dolby Vision 2 should help better optimize current and future generations of TVs, which have obviously changed quite a bit since 2014. As always, though, seeing is believing, so we’ll be the judge of that when we can lay eyes on Dolby Vision 2-assisted content for ourselves.
